Thursday, October 31, 2013

Hope you all had a Spooktacular Halloween night! We had over 240 trick or treaters this year, it was quite a night! Time to relax with leftover candy - HA!

Now to start planning next year! If you're in the mood to get a jump start on next year's festivities, check out The Vintage Halloween Store - we've got sales going on and be sure to order our 2014 Halloween calendar full of vintage postcard witches and fanciful postcard sayings.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

I selected the spooky Nancy Drew classic book, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, #25 in the series as this year'sHalloween partytheme. This year was my 5th annual Nancy Drew Halloween Party and I set out to recreate a little bit of Blackwood Hall
as the setting. 12 of us gathered at the house for an evening of spooks
and treats with a ghostly theme. We dined on an old favorite, Parmesan
chicken, penne Alfredo, salad with all the trimmings, rolls, chips and
dips and salsa, peanut butter chocolate cream cheese ball with cookies
and crackers, and for dessert: rice krispie treat cupcakes, popcorn
balls, pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate, and Reese's peanut butter
cookie cups. Sleuth Pam from Canada also brought us some delicious
chocolates from Canada and Maple Sugar candies! Bess would have been in
Heaven--except for the luminous green "poison" punch! Yum!

We played a quicksand trivia game for prizes, a nifty
crossword puzzle based on the book, and we held our annual treat bag
gift exchange. We also took photos with photo booth props and glowing
glasses--the ones on the porch without the flash have a very ghostly
effect! The porch was the hidden elevator in Blackwood Hall complete
with green glowing specter and to the side was the secret room that
opened off the elevator that had the skeleton, magic props, mannequin,
and scary looking cat. The front window silhouette was a take on the
second cover art shown above with Nancy standing apart from Bess (who
says "Eeek!") and George with the flashlight. The house was decorated
with ghosts, pumpkins lit the walkway and hung from the trees with
lights inside, and 2 large scarecrows guarded the entry to the porch
with crows perched on their arms. Inside the back of the elevator was a
jar of green "poison" just like was left with Nancy in the elevator by
the villainous Brex Brothers! I passed out goody bags to everyone with
treats and Blackwood Hall buttons.

I loved creating all the "ghostly" decor, so enjoy some pics from the party:

Friday, October 25, 2013

My cousin Amber and I used to make fun of what we called "tacky" postcards - when we were kids going on summer trips with the family, we stopped in at a place in Amarillo that had a book of "Tacky Postcards" and they were hilarious. Does this one qualify? Probably so. Is it a Halloween one though? It does have an owl and mentions a ghost, so, maybe.....

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Bruce sent me some photos of his pumpkin carving on faux pumpkins--from Funkins to those he has purchased at Michael's. The key he says to carving, is to use a hot knife as it will carve like slicing through butter!